Effects Of Media On Body Image

Body image is the general view about one’s attractiveness. People with a negative view of their body image, see themselves as overweight, unattractive and lacking the ideal body shape.

This is what most of the viewer’s get from media

• Celebrity and model bodies are all over today in magazines, televisions, and even newspapers

These images provide a certain concept in the viewer’s mind of what a perfect body weight should be. Some of the reasons why teenagers and even adults feel bad about their body image are peer pressure, self-esteem and body changes. Media plays a major reason too and even a bigger effect than the above. What the media portrays as a perfect body is very unattainable. It also sends a very bad image that only thin girls are beautiful, if not then otherwise. The media presents false body images in advertisements, thinking that they are convincing people to buy their products, without knowing that they are hurting someone’s ego on the other side.

• The media for example always uses tall, slim girls for advertisements

This makes it look like only slim, tall girls are beautiful and have a say in the society. So a girl who is short and fat never appreciates themselves. Such a girl grow unsatisfied with their bodies. For boys, these tall, masculine guys are always presented. A boy who lacks this body image will think they are not worth hence lowering their self-esteem.

• These sense of being unsatisfied with their bodies makes teenagers look like they are obsessed with what they look like

The images of models make girls want to look like them and at the end of the day can do anything to achieve this. They will even go to extremes of dieting and even taking harmful substances in the name of wanting to get slim. The girls will even go to depths of reconstructing their bodies using plastic surgery. If the mechanisms do not work on them, it will affect their abilities, even it can affect their performance in school or job. The media should, therefore, be very careful with what they present as a perfect body because teenagers take that as a realist.

• The media also gives what should be or not eaten for such bodies to achieved

This lead to eating disorders among viewers. Conditions like Anorexia and Bulimia are increasing very much among teenagers today. They are eating less to achieve the skinny bodies termed as perfect. Most of them today are underweight as proven by medical studies. The media possess a very negative impact on body image of the viewers. They make them go to extremes and strenuous activities to achieve that which ends up harming them.…